


Once Done Wrong and Once Done Right

by nom_omnis_moriar



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Sexual Tension, too many beds too many many beds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-30
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-21 22:13:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/905538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nom_omnis_moriar/pseuds/nom_omnis_moriar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Furniture gets ruined in 221B too often for John's liking. A mishap over one of his blog entries causes circumstances to change. </p><p>Well kind of. A bit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once Done Wrong and Once Done Right

**Author's Note:**

> A reward for the wonderful [bluebellglowinginthedark](http://bluebellglowinginthedark.tumblr.com/), who does some of the most gorgeous Sherlock (particularly Johnlock) fanart I have ever come across. 
> 
> Thanks to the beta for putting up with my irritating tense habits. Grr.

“You bloody idiot!” 

Sherlock decides to check his reflection in the mirror. It’s just as he’d expected. 

“I’m not bleeding.” 

With a sigh of exasperation, John looks up to the ceiling as if looking for spiritual guidance, which Sherlock suspects may be rather a big deal for an atheist. Of course he sees this as an intriguing niche for investigation, rather than a sign that he ought to tone down on his own existence. 

“Personally I think the incident with the chair leg last week was far worse. At least apply the right amount of anger to the situation.” 

John gives Sherlock a face that he expects will induce better behaviour, but all Sherlock can do is bite his cheek to stop himself from laughing at John’s under bite.

All Sherlock can see is yappy Yorkshire terrier.

After yet another failed attempt at getting Sherlock to act his age, John leans over the bed with a firm jaw and pulls back the cashmere blanket, and then the duvet. In perfect timing, his abdomen gives a uncomfortable twinge from the winding he’d received from the collapsing chair a few days ago.

John gives Sherlock the same look a parent would give a toddler if they’d done a bad thing. And Sherlock had done a bad thing. A very bad thing. 

The pair of them looked down at the damage simultaneously, one with a proud grin and one with a grimace. Sherlock finds it rather a complement that John is willing to waste so much of his energy to show Sherlock how annoyed or pleased or, even if John isn’t conscious of it, how down right hor- 

“Well,” John sighs with exaggerated contempt at the hole through Sherlock’s mattress, “you made a good job of that.” 

Sherlock dares to look proud of his work, holding back a ‘why thank you’ because John’s tone is reminiscent of when Mycroft would play matriarch. 

Remembering that the ‘it’s sarcasm not praise’ conversation may as well be spelt out in alphabet spaghetti, served to Sherlock to dinner and still not be noticed, John runs a hand over his face and decides it’s best for his frame of mind – which often takes precedence in times like these – if he just moves ahead in the conversation. 

“How exactly do you plan to fix that?” John asks, perching his bum on a small patch of mattress that isn’t black and burnt with fire damage. “The hole’s smack bang in the middle of mattress. So you’re buggered, aren’t you?” 

Sherlock leans over and peers down the hole with enrapture. “The fire didn’t burn all the way through.” He leaps into the gap, bounces a little, and promptly falls about thirty centimetres down to the floor. 

John shakes his head, not quite believing that this is what his life has come to, as Sherlock lies on the bed so that his bum just dips into the hole. 

Sherlock chatters away to himself light heartedly. “All I’d have to do is put a bucket underneath and anyone would think I’m suffering from Cholera.” Only Sherlock can find the prospect of having a water borne disease a lark. He makes himself go limp and lifeless on the bed. “John. John. Do I look like I’m dying?”

Even if Sherlock’s sense of humour is a bit of a hermit, John isn’t in the mood for it if it’s going to cost him a new mattress and a set of bed clothing. “Slight issue in that Cholera was eradicated from England over a hundred years ago.” 

Even with his head turned, John is convinced that Sherlock is pulling a face and mocking him. 

“Well, I’ve got the answers I was after.” Sherlock declares, leaping from the bed in an adrenalin rush from his newly solved case. “Just throw a new sheet over, I couldn’t care less.” He gestures to the state of chaos with a casual flip of the hand before walking to the living room to fetch his mobile. 

“Sherlock we’re bachelors-“ 

Sherlock gives John The Look. “No, I’m a ‘boffin’. You’re the bachelor-” 

“Oh for God’s sake.” 

“-Confirmed bachelor, as a matter of fact.” Sherlock adds with a little hum of amusement to himself. 

No, John will not allow himself to be riled up so much so that he can’t remember what the arguments about. “We don’t have spare sheets, nor do we have the money to buy them!” 

That’s quite enough of the pointless banter. Being the snarky little bastard he is, Sherlock gives a thumbs up and one of those looks that John finds hilarious when aimed at other people, but not quite so much at himself. Sherlock walks out the room and John is left talking to himself in a conversation only slightly less stimulating. 

 

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

 

Of course, Sherlock refuses to alter his already bizarre habits due to this little mishap. He still wraps the sheet around him when he traipses around the flat, except it’s somewhat lost its regal quality and become a sort of peep show. A flash of freckled shoulder blade or a tease of undulating ribs is now paired when an exclamation of boredom, or an exploding conical flask. 

It makes living with Sherlock a little more bearable. 

But it seems as though seeing Sherlock’s skin in getting under John’s. 

“Huh.” 

Sherlock is unable yet to gauge the weight of the situation. John’s use of ‘huh’ as an expression of shock covers the entire spectrum from his tea going cold to a crime involving people being disemboweled and hung from their large intestines. 

John clears his throat, most likely to get Sherlock’s attention and squints at his laptop screen. This is not unusual behaviour, so Sherlock returns to the Aβ plaques under his microscope.

“Sherlock.” 

“Hm.” 

“Have you fiddled with my blog?” 

Scoffing at the accusation, Sherlock pulls his sheet a little tighter around him, as if it were a punishment to John. “I’m insulted you think I have the time for such tedium.” 

“Really, huh.” John begins, eyes squint in retort, “how about that time you logged in and put ‘my name is John and my poetry skills are as arousing as a wet tea towel’?” 

“You’d left your blog open, as a matter of fact.” 

It had taken a good few months for John to realize that Sherlock’s nit picking at his choice of words as opposed to coming back with a retort was practically a confession. 

“Look, I woke up this morning and had an email on my phone-” 

Sherlock – still sat rigid on the kitchen chair – makes that sort of melodic _oooooooh_ sound he knows people do when they’re trying to pretend they are interested, like when speaking with a small child. He thinks he’s given a good attempt. 

Like a great many things Sherlock does to try and act within social norms, John thinks he’s taking the piss. 

“-Oh bugger off. Anyway, it said I’d had four hundred and seven comments on the case I wrote up last night.” 

Sherlock’s listening but not really listening, mumbling to himself about numbers and something about narcissistic. 

“Narcissistic? Yeah, you’re telling me.” John huffs to himself, sitting down in his armchair before reaching out for his laptop on the nearby coffee table. 

Even though John can hear Sherlock now shuffling toward him, he still exclaims in irritation as if he honestly doesn’t expect Sherlock to pluck the laptop that’s balanced on his lap. 

“No John, narcissistic numbers. Ever heard of them?” Sherlock inquires, fingers flurrying over the keyboard. 

One day John thinks to himself, one day I’ll say ‘yes’ and wipe the smile of your gorgeous face. His runaway thought causes him to choke on his tea. It’s becoming increasingly more difficult to hold back on his affections towards his flatmate. And this bloody sheet isn’t helping in the slightest. 

“I thought it was numbers, it’s not the numbers. It’s something else. It’s - _oh_.” 

“What?” 

Being by far the most emotionally adept out of the two of them, John rakes his eyes over Sherlock’s rigid posture and twitching fingers. Sherlock is shocked and intrigued all at once. 

That’s all very typical of Sherlock when he’s got something to investigate, but it’s not until he raises his head that John notices the slight flush on the crest of Sherlock’s cheekbones and the black pools of his eyes. 

“Well, well John.” Sherlock begins, eyes going wide at the hoarseness of his voice and clearing his throat. “This is more your kind of area. I’ll leave it with you to deal with.” He gestures to the screen. 

The laptop is practically thrown back into John’s lap and Sherlock attempts a swift getaway with the sheet tangling around his ankles back to the kitchen. 

John increases the zoom on his laptop (a ritual that remains so far unspoken between the two of them) and begins to read his latest entry. It all seems rather ordinary at first, and with the comments currently hidden, he has no clue as to what has caused all this ridiculous commotion. 

_After that, Sherlock spent the rest of the day rather stiff. Poor sod. I suppose I’ll be the one to look after him and tend to his ridiculous requests when the case is all closed up._

“Ah.” 

What he’d actually been talking about was when Sherlock’s back was gored by a candelabrum. But of course, somebody (Harry) had made some suggestive comment, and it had all escalated from there. 

“If it’s any consideration, I think that’s a damn sight better than your poetry.” Sherlock replies with a smirk, having finished his tour of the kitchen and returning to stand in front of John. “How long before Mills and Boon contact you, I wonder?” 

John bites his bottom lip to hold back a grin. “Not into romance then?” 

Sherlock shrugs - most likely to cause the sheet to slip of his shoulders. “Depends how long I’ve been forced to wait” he grins idiotically.

Now this, this is something John knows. Without taking his eyes away from Sherlock, he closes his laptop and rests it on the floor. “Oh. Been yearning, have you?” 

Sherlock takes a step forward, lets the sheet fall down a little more. “One can only have soppy thoughts for so long before they find themselves practically desperate.” 

That last word rumbles through John’s bones. 

“I think I know what you mean.” John admits, now leaning back in his seat to view all of Sherlock’s great looming glory. “Off with it then.” He casually remarks, holding his own. 

He doesn’t at first. But then Sherlock holds John’s eyes and lets the sheet fall from his body, keeping a blank expression. 

John eyes soften, eyes openly roaming. “Look at you. Just look at you.” 

Sherlock looks at his reflection in the mirror, then down at himself at his arousal and the wiggling of his toes on the floorboards. He gives John a look that’s almost sheepish. 

His body is rather a contradiction. Lean and yet John knows incredibly strong. It’s only when Sherlock moves that John can see the muscles tense and shift, that they are defined, compact. His skin is the shade of a Vanilla flower, and looks as it would be as smooth as its velvet petals. But it’s not imperfect, not a blank canvas.

Sherlock’s life is written on that skin, in its freckles, birthmarks and scars. 

As lovely as it is to watch John’s reaction, Sherlock’s rather in a need to touch and be touched. He slides into John’s lap and, with those great long limbs of his, wraps himself around John’s existence.  
In films there is the climatic music and pathetic fallacy and the angling of bodies and cameras to hide the not so nice bits. After all that research, Sherlock finds he rather prefers it this way. 

John’s hand finds the back of Sherlock’s neck. “C’mere.” 

It’s raining dreadfully outside. Sherlock’s rather cold and John’s jumper is scratchy against his belly and he’s hoping that John doesn’t move his legs because he’s rather precious about that part of his anatomy. 

Then John’s brings him closer and their lips press together, and nothing else really matters. He feels John sigh against his lips, the heat between his legs and callused hands skimming over his ribs and that’s exponentially better than he’d ever come to expect. 

When John pulls back for air, Sherlock chases his lips eagerly. 

“Waited.” He breathes between them. “Stupid. So _stupid_.” 

John smiles and takes in Sherlock’s top lip, the ridge of that bow sensitive against his own. His touch is thorough, and all consuming. Sherlock shudders and whimpers at the attention. 

“Come on; upstairs.” John pants, patting Sherlock’s bum in his hastiness to continue. 

Sherlock unfurls his limbs, bouncing on his heels whilst he waits for John to lock the door. Frustrated at the teasing, Sherlock instead turns and heads up the stairs to the now only useable bed in the flat. 

“Don’t ruin my bed whilst you’re up there.” John shouts up the stairs, turning off the lights. 

Sherlock turns, leans over the banister and calls back, “I’m waiting for you to join me first.” 

Not bothering to hide his excitement, John bounds up the stairs, reaching for the hem of his jumper when he catches his bed throw floating through the bedroom doorway like a beacon. 

John pauses in the doorway, soaks in the sight of Sherlock, who’s eerily still, considering. Sherlock cocks an eyebrow, the start of a smile tugging at his lips, one he doesn’t get to finish.

Sherlock falls back onto the bed from the added weight of John latching onto his front. There may have been a yelp of surprise from him, but it’s unheard over the over the creaking of the bed.

And the way it suddenly slopes downwards a couple of seconds later, causing John to smack his forehead against a rather protruding collarbone. 

“This doesn’t happen in real life” John pants, head buried in the crook of Sherlock’s neck in denial. If he can’t see it, it hasn't happened.

Shaking in laughter causes Sherlock – and John on top of him – to slide slightly down the bed. “Well,” Sherlock begins, “I _did_ say I would wait for you.”

**Author's Note:**

> For fic updates and BC/Sherlock goodness, check my [tumblr](http://suckitandnom.tumblr.com/).


End file.
